M O L LY B E N N E T T Graduate Architecture Portfolio M.Arch Candidate 2021 University of Florida
Contents Plaza de Plataformas
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Material Matters
16
Casting Light
18
Filtering the City
26
Inhabiting the Poché
30
Artifact of Disparity
44
Hot to Cold
48
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Plaza de Plataformas
Plaza de Plataformas
Graduate Design 3, Fall 2020. Professor Stephen Belton Project designed in collaboration with: Mark Wilson, Clay Martin, and James Rivera PROPOSAL FOR THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN LATINO
Fall 2020
In July 2020, The House of Representatives approved the National Museum of the American Latino Act. The purpose of this legislation was to establish a museum on the National Mall dedicated to representing and commemorating American Latino contributions to the U.S. military, innovations in science and technology, civil rights movements, the arts and the economy. Through a reflection of the Latin American past, explored through the lens of a city plaza, this project serves as a platform for the national identities of the American Latino Community. The plaza typology has held a significant role across Latin American communities since before Spanish influence. The city plaza was a significant feature of pre- Columbian Latin American cities. It was a space of ritual, religion, gathering, and sport. Spanish influences transformed the scheme, but only superficially. The curtains might have become catholic, but the role of the space stayed true, framing the community. This project takes the stance that American Latinos are the upholders of great communities, more than deserving to be framed in a national spotlight. This created the driving question for the design process: how do you frame a community?
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SITE | THE NATIONAL MALL
Plaza de Plataformas
The proposed site for this museum lies just west of the Capitol building and adjacent to I. M. Pei”s National Gallery of Art (East Building). Within this context, this museum truly will have a space at the head of the table of the National Mall. These conditions lead us to make some intuitive decisions about how the building would sit on the site and where green spaces would be most fitting.
Fall 2020 Site Plan
STUDYING PLAZA TYPOLOGIES Reflecting on cultural practices and polemical histories pointed to friction amongst methods. Pre-Colombian city plans in Latin America were varied, but many were a direct translation of astronomical findings. Buildings following the stars. After Spanish colonization, the mission courtyard and grid-iron planning took over, becoming arcaded borders framing a cardinal courtyard, swelling at the zeniths for the placement of significant social programs, namely churches. This projects blends those narratives together. A significant influence was the Plaza del Zócalo in Mexico city, a space that began as an Aztec city center, but has changed over time to meet the needs of the Spanish, and now Mexico. This axonometric study of the Plaza del Zocolo demonstrated these ideas to us clearly in its transformations both throughout the year and day-to-day. Looking to plazas around the world, we studied how they were used by the community and how important it is to maintain flexibility in the space. If overly-controlled, the plaza loses the magic it inherently holds as a space for all, a space for celebration and protest, a place for the ordinary and the extraordinary to occur.
Plaza del Zócalo in Mexico City
Field Studies
PLASTER WALL + FIELD STUDIES Break | Carve | Excavate
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Plaza de Plataformas
One of the first methods we explored involved casting plaster walls as a unified shape, leaving the void of the plaza within. By embedding objects and textiles within the plaster casts, the de-molding process yielded organic breaks and fractures in the walls. Leaving some objects within the masses lead to certain decisions about the porosity of the facade in these locations. The field study prompted us to overlap and find connections between zones that project from the varied angles of each wall. Changing the scale of grid and creating depressions in the surface gave us insight on the variations of this hardscape and their relationship to the program of the plaza.
Fall 2020 West Wall Exterior | Porosity and Mass
North Wall Exterior | Uncovering Texture
Plan | Shifting Edges
South Wall Exterior | Fractures
East Wall Interior | Embedded
Casting the Field | Gridded Zones
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FACADE | INTERIOR + EXTERIOR
Plaza de Plataformas Fall 2020
The facade systems vary dramatically between the interior and exterior of the project. Within the wrapping walls, the facade consists of multi-colored terracotta rods. These rods allow for the surface behind to either open up to reveal the striated pattern or remain opaque, masking the view from the interior occupants. This allows the gallery spaces to remain relatively enclosed, protecting the art within and providing a blank canvas on which to display it. As light passes through these rods, the colors are subtly reflected within the building, bringing life and energy to the lobby and circulation spaces between galleries. Alternatively, the exterior makes a different statement on the world stage of the National Mall. The stone facade is a take on the common masonry building techniques utilized in many buildings in Washington D.C. To emulate the energy the interior holds, there are vertical panels of colored glass set into the stone facade. These window slots also create illuminated spaces in the circulation corridors between galleries.
Interior Elevation | North Wall
Interior Elevation | East Wall
Interior Elevation | South Wall
Exterior Elevation | West Wall
Exterior Elevation | East Wall
Exterior Elevation | South Wall
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Plaza de Plataformas Fall 2020 Seasonal Occupation Axonometric Diagram
SEASONAL OCCUPATION Throughout the process of creating this field, we kept seasonal events and weather in mind. We designed zones of appropriate scales and locations to accommodate events from food trucks on summer evenings to spring flower markets to winter tree lighting ceremonies. Depicting these events brought the plaza to life. The diagram to the left details some possible season-related programs that could occur in the central plaza of the museum. Some of these events, like Día de los Muertos, involve processions through the space while others are more stationary, like an outdoor summer movie screening. Maintaining flexibility in the plaza is crucial in order to allow the Latino community to harness this space as their own in the often turbulent political climate of Washington D.C.
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Plaza de Plataformas
Fall 2020
Section | Facing East
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Material Matters
Material Matters
This set of studies explores the textural possibilities of concrete by using other materials to alter the surface. While both of the texture studies (1,3) produced surface depth, a fully penetrable volume would allow light to pass through the concrete, leading into the perforation studies. The first perforation study involved copper tubing that was cast into the concrete to create voids (2), allowing light to pass through and illuminate the tubes. Taking an image of naturally casted shadows, a surface geometry was created that yielded panels consisting of layered perforations. After creating two scales of molds, concrete and glycerin were cast into them, producing different lighting effects (4,5).
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2
Concrete Material Studies Graduate Design 1, Fall 2019. Materials: concrete, stone tile (1), wax (2), shelf liner (3).
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Tower Concept Model Design 7, Fall 2018. In Collaboration with Paul Gruber. Materials: glycerin, wire mesh, sewing pins, basswood, concrete.
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Topographic Casts Graduate Design 1, Fall 2019. Materials: glycerin, plexiglass molds, concrete.
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Casting Light
Casting Light
Graduate Design 1, Fall 2019. Professors Lisa Huang and Lee-Su Huang CASTING LIGHT | CREATING ENCLOSURE
Fall 2019
This phase of the project prompted exploration of the experiential qualities that the material studies would have if they were incorporated at the building scale. The geometry of the paneled façade is derived from the light and shadow cast through tree canopies. This phenomenon generates beams of filtered light that are cast onto surfaces below, creating an almost kaleidoscopic effect. There is a transitional space between the interior and exterior of the building that acts as a light chamber, capturing this experience within a constructed volume. This interstitial space that acts as an entry sequence has the most direct relationship with the tree canopy, allowing occupants to directly experience the filtering façade in close proximity. I was also interested in how the lighting affects the atmosphere of the interior spaces, where the façade itself is more removed from the experience.
Materializing filtered light
1/4” = 1’ Scale Model
Rendered Plan Drawing
Rendered Section Drawing
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Analytique
Casting Light
Graduate Design 1, Fall 2019. Professors Lisa Huang and Lee-Su Huang Architectural Detailing, Fall 2019. Professor Bradley Walters CASTING LIGHT | THE ANALYTIQUE
Fall 2019
In the analytique, I was interested in exploring the relationship between sectional details at different scales, delving into more intricate systems as the scale increased. Navigating between the full wall section and the façade joint also explores the occupant’s relationship with the detail. The joint where the concrete panels are attached to the steel façade structure is visibly accessible from the entry corridor. The interaction between the occupant and the detail has become a main focus in the design of this project and the analytique highlights that relationship. The atmospheric and elemental qualities of the spaces facilitate the interaction between occupant and detail. Including the partial plan also indicates the structural relationship with the space. It shows how the façade turns the corner and transforms into solid concrete panels, highlighting the difference between the perforated façade and the opaque edge.
FACADE DETAIL SECTION Scale 3” = 1’-0” 1. Welded Tube Steel 2. Standard Steel Angle 3. Elongated Steel Angle 4. Steel Stiffener Plate 5. Fastener Bolts 6. Custom Steel Angle 7. Bolted Connection 8. Counter-Sunk Bolt 9. Pre-cast Perforated Concrete Panel 10. W-Flange Steel Column
WALL SECTION Scale: 1” = 1’-0” 1. Polished Concrete Topping Slap 2. Composite Concrete Deck 3. W12x26 Wide Flange Steel Beam 4. Rigid Insulation 5. Finished Exterior Ceiling Surface 6. W6x20 Wide Flange Steel Beam 7. Dropped Ceiling 8. 518 Gwb 9. Metal Stud Wall 10. Batt Insulation 11. Sheathing 12. Cement Plaster Smooth Finished Wall 13. Insulated Glass Unit 14. Waterproof Membrane 15. Metal Cap 16. Concrete Slab On Grade 17. Concrete Footing 18. Pre-Cast Perforated Concrete Panels 19. Steel Structure Supporting Facade
Facade Detail Section
Model Photos
Wall Section
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Facade Assembly
Casting Light
Graduate Design 1, Fall 2019. Professors Lisa Huang and Lee-Su Huang In Collaboration with Kristen DeMarco. CASTING LIGHT | 1:1 WALL ASSEMBLY
Fall 2019
This full scale wall assembly was driven by two core ideas: material fluidity and the layering of shadows. The two sides of the model represent the surfaces of the interior and exterior of the space. The interior surface is shaped by layers of fabric that are stretched to meet the edges of the extruded aperture. Light is cast onto the fabric, giving the light quality a level of tangibility. The light becomes diffused as it passes through the layer of fabric and the transformation of apertures through the layers of panels. The exterior surface is composed of organic geometries, driven by the natural shadows cast on the ground through a tree canopy, that mark the panels. The full scale model is constructed with plywood panels, wood members and steel connections. The series of plywood panels are assembled in groups of two and three with an L-angle connection for application to the overall structure. The shifting angels of the panels create a surface that appears to be in motion, pushing in and out to receive light and transmit it through the assembly. The metal aperture protrudes through the exterior and interior surface, pushing the fabric on the interior to create a fluid surface. The metal form provides depth to the construction, allowing the structure to become ghosted behind the fabric.
Full Assembly | 8 Feet Tall
Axonometric Assembly Diagram
Panel Details
Side View of Construct
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Casting Light Fall 2019 CATCHING LIGHT Light filters through the structure and apertures in the wood panels, casting onto the tapered fabric surface on the opposite side.
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Filtering the City
Filtering The City
Graduate Design 2, Spring 2020 Professors Mark McGlothlin and Bradley Walters Housing for Traveling Scholars in Philadelphia, PA
Spring 2020
Located adjacent to the Parkway Central Library, this construct makes an effort to navigate the relationship between the book, the body and the urban fabric of Philadelphia. The prompt was to create spaces for traveling scholars to research and reside in the same vicinity. How architecture can facilitate a synergistic relationship between the two while maintaining a necessary separation? Drawing from the scale of local precedents allows this construct to merge into its context. Its enveloping translucent facade rises up to expose the materiality of the ground floor while maintaining the edge of the street corner. By responding architecturally to its surroundings and inhabitants, this project acts as a threshold between the home and the city.
Interior Perspective | Living Space
East Elevation
Exterior Perspective | Southeast Corner
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Filtering The City Spring 2020 Process Elevations
LONGITUDINAL SECTION Drafted Scale: 1/8”=1’-0” 1. Balcony 2. Bedroom 3. Bathroom 4. Kitchen 5. Living Room 6. Egress 7. Reading Nook 8. Ada Accessible Bathroom 9. Bedrom 10. Kitchen 11. Living Room 12. Main Building Entry | Egress GROUND FLOOR PLAN Drafted Scale: 1/16”=1’-0”
Interior Perspective | Reading Room
1. ADA Accessible Parking Spot 2. Egress Stair 01 3. ADA Accessible Bathroom 4. Bedroom 5. Kitchen 6. Living Room 7. Main Building Entrance 8. Egress Stair 02
Ground Floor Plan
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Inhabiting the Poché
Inhabiting the Poché
Graduate Design 2, Spring 2020 Professors Mark McGlothlin and Bradley Walters Archive and Special Collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia, PA
Spring 2020
The city of Philadelphia approaches its historical elements with a selective sensitivity, fiercely preserving and protecting some structures and monuments while allowing other zones to be reimagined in the contemporary environment. The close proximity and blended urban fabric create a context that can be excavated and re-imagined. As a citizen of the city, a library has the unique task of providing the occupant with a choreographed itinerary based on the organization and categorization of the books it is holding while also creating multi-faceted spaces that can accommodate many people’s needs. It is within the convergence of individual experience and community involvement that one can begin to discover new spaces, the interstitial. These spaces are a product of the itinerary and can begin to push and pull, physically and metaphorically by framing the context, creating moments of isolation, and generating volumes of light or darkness. How can we inhabit the poché?
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Inhabiting the Poché
Spring 2020
EXPERIENCING THE CONTEXT Walking through the city allows one to experience the scale of the grid in ways that cannot be understood by viewing a map. The site of this project lies along a major shift in the grid of the city of Philadelphia, The Ben Franklin Parkway slices through the grid, carving through the urban fabric with greenery and pavement. The Barnes Foundation begins to mitigate this angular shift in its geometry, which is best expressed in site plan. However, an occupant navigating the surrounding streets would not necessarily understand this relationship due to the lack of street presence of the Barnes Foundation. The site for the proposed special collections library expansion is directly exposed to the street, prompting the decision to either react to the grid shift, or strengthen the orthogonal edge of this zone. By looking at contextual registrations and beginning to draw connections between them, this design began to materialize. Allowing intersections to determine the locations of massive circulation cores, a formal building language is established, and mass and void begin to appear between the lines.
Reading Cores
Skylights
Egress Cores
Vertical Volumes
Program Tabulation Chart
PROGRAM AND COMPOSITION After looking at Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals, the idea of collaging masses and creating interstitial, gathering spaces that stitch them together conceptually fit with the programs of this library. A library is a place where architecture begins to captivate the occupant and facilitate their journey to knowledge. The vast majority of the floor area is dedicated to the special collections stacks and reading spaces. Many other programmatic elements act in service of the stacks, which become the connective tissue between different programmed spaces.
Program Isometric
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Inhabiting the Poché Spring 2020 Longitudinal Section
West Elevation
READING CORES The reading cores become interspersed along the edges of the stack spaces, masked by the labyrinth of books that surround them. By slipping into the nondescript, entrance to these individual reading paces, the occupant can disappear into their own thoughts and processes. Allowing occupants of this building to choose their own path and find solace in isolation, while maintaining a visual connection to their surroundings quickly became an important design goal. The reading cores also leave an imprint on the facade, becoming inset voids separated from the textured concrete surface, revealing a smooth, zinc-clad slot. This delineation creates a visual and spatial connection between the interior and the facade, thickening the boundary between inside and outside, manipulating the poche. The cores can be viewed as both mass and void, appearing massive when approached, and revealing the void within when occupied. In plan, these spaces weave themselves into the building edge and are camouflaged by the book stacks, intentionally creating discrete entry points.
WALL SECTION + PARTIAL ELEVATION Scale: 1/2” = 1’ 1. Structural concrete bearing wall 2. Steel column to concrete connection 3. Precast concrete panel rain screen system 4. HVAC supply ducts 5. W flange steel column (W12 x 50) 6. W flange steel column (W8 x 31) 7. Composite concrete deck 8. Cantilevered walkway 9. Handrail (44” tall) 10. Zinc cladding 11. Dropped ceiling 12. Zinc coping detail 13. Double-layered glazing system 14. Zinc-wrapped sill 15. Roof drain 16. Tube steel-framed parapet 17. Concrete low slope roof
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Inhabiting the Poché
Spring 2020
Cross Section
South Elevation
Midterm Section
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Inhabiting the Poché Spring 2020 UNDERGROUND PARKING PLAN PARKING Scale: 1/16” PLAN = 1’ 1. Ramp Down 2. Egress Core 3. Boiler Room
GROUND FLOOR PLAN Scale: 1/16” = 1’ 1. Cafe 2. Administration 3. Front Desk 4. Auditorium 5. Central Stair 6. Bathrooms 7. Lobby 8. Rare Books Collection 9. Ramp Down to Parking
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Inhabiting the Poché Spring 2020 MEZZANINE FLOOR PLAN Scale: 1/16” = 1’ 1. Administration 2. Archivist & Conservationist Offices 3. Archivist & Conservationist Laboratory
SECOND FLOOR PLAN Scale: 1/16” = 1’ 1. Special Collections General Stacks 2. Focused Reading Room 3. Bathrooms 4. Central Stair 5. Public Forum
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Inhabiting the Poché Spring 2020 THIRD FLOOR PLAN Scale: 1/16” = 1’ 1. Special Collections General Stacks 2. Maps & Flatwork 3. Bathrooms 4. Central Stair 5. Public Forum
FOURTH FLOOR PLAN Scale: 1/16” = 1’ 1. Special Collections General Stacks 2. Reading Space 3. Bathrooms 4. Central Stair 5. Public Forum 6. Roof Deck
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Artifact of Disparity
Artifact of Disparity
Graduate Design 3, Fall 2020. Professor Stephen Belton How can this act as an informational/emotional vessel that opens its visitors’ eyes to the wealth inequality happening in this country? The objective of this pavilion is to evoke emotional responses to a series of spaces that guide the occupant through an experiential journey about the significance (or insignificance) of an artifact: the coin.
Fall 2020
SPATIAL NARRATIVE As one travels south, away from the Washington Monument, they come across a metallic construct peeking through the trees. An elongated path presents itself and leading the visitor past a series of shallow pools and into a dark shaft jutting out from the perforated copper planes. Upon entry, the first space encapsulates the visitor, transporting them into a different reality contained within this construct. Their eyes are immediately drawn to different points around the room as small glimmers of light catch their attention. Shining coins are suspended from the ceiling, dangling above their heads, just out of reach. There are also punctures in the walls that display coins, with small spotlights shining on them, remaining untouchable behind a layer of glass.
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Artifact of Disparity Fall 2020 2. In this space, the occupant is encouraged to appreciate the visual qualities of these artifacts, which are precious and untouchable. The warm atmosphere of the room acts as a veil to distract from the fact that these coins remain intangible. 3. The occupant begins to descend down a long hallway of sorts, catching glimpses of their outside surroundings as they pass by vertical slots in the wall surface. The regularity and frequency of the slots dictates the slow pace of travel as they watch the ground rise up around them, enveloping the dark space at the end of the progression. They can faintly hear the sound of running water and the occasional clang of metal, both sounds growing louder as they descend into darkness. 4. The arrival into the second space is veiled by a slow fade into darkness, existing in stark contrast to the abrupt, warm initial entry. At the end of this progression, the space in its entirety is taken in and a sense of vacancy sets in. They are immediately illuminated by beams of light reflecting off the shallow pool below, but weighed down by a heavy mass above.
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2
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Hot to Cold | Revival
Hot to Cold
Graduate Design 1, Fall 2019. Professors Lisa Huang and Lee-Su Huang Mount Kelimutu Flores, Indonesia
Fall 2019
These three crater lakes are believed to hold the spitits of the dead, classified into three categories: the old, the young, and the wicked. This construct is located on the edge of the Lake of the Old Souls. The vertical orientation is integral to the experience of inhabitants because it allows one to re-orient themselves in relation to these massive and unique lakes, giving them a view of these lakes that is not possible otherwise. The overall form the construct takes is based on the orientation of the three lakes. As you ascend, the path pushes you towards the lake of the wicked souls first, on the second level. This provokes a moment of self-reflection before continuing up a ladder and onto the next stage in this experience. The journey upwards is intended to reach a certain level of difficulty, creating a more individual experience that is not easily achieved by everyone. It is only upon reaching the top of the tower that one can make their offering.
Site Section
Site Plan
Section
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Hot to Cold Fall 2019 Section
Second Floor Plan
Model Photos
OFFERING
Ground Floor Plan
The interwoven gabion walls contain stones that act as offerings in traditional local rituals. The stones are gathered by hikers, brough up the tower and then placed within the gabion walls as an offering to the spirits of the old and young souls, recognizing their integral role in the present world.
Exterior Perspective
Gabion Sectional Study
Gabion Axonometric Study
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Hot to Cold | Burial
Hot to Cold
Graduate Design 1, Fall 2019. Professors Lisa Huang and Lee-Su Huang Storglomvatnet Lake Glomfjord, Norway
Fall 2019
Programmatically, this construct is inspired by historical Nordic burial rituals that have taken place in Norway for centuries. In many cases, a boat was built specifically for the burial and then burned along with the body, which would be placed into the boat along with their most precious goods. This interpretation holds a space for the construction of the boat, insertion of the body into the boat, and a vertical pit space where both would be lowered and burned ceremonially in a cremation process. Family members and friends approach the construct by boat, arriving at a dock. They then descent into the water via a carved pathway that remains continuous as they enter the building. The experiential qualities of these spaces revolve largely around view and how the opacity of materials can obscure or reveal aspects of the ritual. The construction space and the insertion space are located adjacent to each other, encapsulated in a shear fabric volume.
Site Section
Site Plan
Interior Perspective | Ascending
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Hot to Cold
Fall 2019
Section
Plan
DESCENT The space for body storage and insertion is masked by an inner layer of opaque fabric, shielding visitors from experiencing this more sensitive aspect of the ritual. As the occupant descends further, the boat travels with them towards the burning pit. They each pass through punctures in the massive walls of the pit and conclude their journey as the boat is lowered and the fire is lit. Interior Perspective | Descending
Model Photos
Molly Bennett M.Arch Candidate 2021 University of Florida Graduate School of Architecture mollybennett@ufl.edu
Education
2019-2021
Master of Architecture
2015-2019
Bachelor of Design in Architecture
2019
Experience
Involvement
University of Florida Graduate School of Architecture University of Florida School of Architecture Minor: Sustainability in the Built Environment Graduated Summa Cum Laude
Vicenza Institute of Architecture UF SoA Study Abroad Program
2017-2020
Architectural Intern | HughesUmbanhowar Architects
2019-2020
Graduate Teaching Assistant | University of Florida School of Architecture
2020-2021
Executive Editor | Vorkurs_Domaine
2017-2019
Architecture College Council | President
2017-2019
Alpha Rho Chi | Clerk, Scribe
Awards
2019 2015-2019
Software + Skills
At HughesUmbanhowar Architects, I participated in the design development process by constructing both process and final models of ongoing projects, creating layouts for meetings with clients, rendering and photoshopping perspectives, and assisting with construction documents. (Summers 2017-2020) Courses Taught: Introduction to Digital Architecture Fall 2019 and Fall 2020. Advanced Topics in Digital Architecture, Spring 2021. As a GTA, I worked closely with professors, independently ran lab sessions twice a week, instructed and assisted students with any technical questions and helped maintain a direct connection with their studio classes. Vorkurs is the student-initiated and run publication for the University of Florida Graduate School of Architecture. As Executive Editor, I corresponded with external contributors, led our team in formatting and assembling the book, and worked directly with UF SoA faculty to secure the longevity of the publication through school funding.
Managed student government-funded budget for clubs within the college Handled all internal and external communications.
Undergraduate Architecture Design Award University of Florida School of Architecture
Dean’s List
University of Florida
Proficient
Adobe Creative Suite AutoCAD Rhinoceros 3D SketchUp V-ray Rendering Lumion Physical Model Building Laser Cut Fabrication
Experienced
Revit Archicad Grasshopper CNC Mill Fabrication
